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Lonely Hearts
Metascore
60 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 14 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
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  1. Variety
    Reviewed by: Ronnie Scheib
    80
    Todd Robinson constructs a riveting thriller.
  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Alex Chun
    70
    While not much of a detective story, Robinson's period film does provide a captivating look at the dynamics that turn Fernandez and Beck into serial killers.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    As fictional characters in a movie that is fetishistic in its attention to period detail, Mr. Leto and Ms. Hayek work well together as an unsavory couple two rungs down the social ladder from Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity."
  4. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    70
    The story of Fernandez and Beck may be grotesque comedy, but Todd Robinson tells it straight, without flinching from its piteousness, horror, or banality.
  5. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    67
    Lonely Hearts never locates the key to the killers' bloody bond.
  6. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    67
    Travolta gives a hangdog performance as the world-weary cop obsessed with rooting out the killers. Hayek and Leto share a few tart black comic moments as the film spirals into a bloodbath.
  7. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    63
    The intensity of Leto and Hayek goes deeper than the script into revealing what makes these two sociopaths in heat impervious to bloody murder. When Hayek and Leto are onscreen, you do not look away.
  8. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    63
    While Travolta and Gandolfini have the beefy, closed-off look of post-WWII era cops, they never FEEL: They look like actors playing dress up. Leto overcomes his delicate good looks to embody Fernandez's feral, faintly exotic charm, but Hayek is a standard-issue femme fatale, damaged on the inside but flawless on the surface.
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Frank Scheck
    60
    While the duo's crimes were indeed sensational, writer-director Todd Robinson's starry take on the material fails to provide much in the way of a new perspective.
  10. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    60
    A handsome and well-acted film -- if you like that bitten-off, half-Hemingway style -- but also a grim, emotionally strangled one with a strong sadistic current, no genuinely likable characters and almost no humor.
  11. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    50
    Good as she is, the effortlessly magnetic Hayek just can't sell the role of a pathetic soul whose deep insecurities turn her into a sociopath. And if she has too much charisma, Leto, as the smooth Lothario, simply doesn't have enough.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    50
    Too much of the film is given over to the soap opera of Elmer's life.
  13. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    50
    Hayek, with that old-time movie-star pout, those dark, reflective eyes (they could be Satan's twin swimming pools), is the shivery, chilling backbone of Lonely Hearts. Martha Beck couldn't get away with murder. But Salma Hayek can.
  14. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    50
    Todd Robinson, grandson of the real-life Elmer, never fully commits to the heartlessness of the genre as Arthur Penn did in "Bonnie and Clyde."
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.8 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. JayM.
    8
    Criminally overlooked noir.
  2. MarieM.
    6
    Unfortunately, Selam Hayack can't act. When that's combined with her being incredibly badly miscast in this role, it's a disaster. The real-life character her role is based on was a morbidly obese woman. If they'd cast someone appropriate - say, somone who coudld, I don't know - ACT - the movie really could have worked. The rest of the cast was there and the script wasn't tbad. Instead, Hayack is walking around around in the same red lipstick she wears in every movie being Selma Hayack and it's impossible to forget who she is. It's a shame, too, because Jared Leto is really, really good here.… Full Review »
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